Can college crowd help breathe life into downtown Worcester?

New students from MCPHS University walk toward the school's Henrietta DeBenedictis Building on Foster Street in downtown Worcester on Friday.

WORCESTER — When first-year pharmacy student Ahmed El Kabbany walked downtown with two classmates one day last week, the trio found a place to work out and places to grab lunch.

They found less when it came to businesses offering all the other things they may need while studying at MCPHS University.

"We didn't see a lot," said Mr. El Kabbany, 24, of Alexandria, Egypt.

Even as local colleges send more students downtown to live and learn, a trend welcomed by city and development officials, new enterprises catering to those potential customers in the neighborhood have been slow to develop. The pace illustrates the difficulty of reviving a commercial neighborhood saddled with underused buildings but also raises questions about how much students can be expected to change downtown Worcester.

"They help," said MCPHS University President Charles F. Monahan Jr. "They jump-start it. But you can't expect students to revive the second-largest city in New England."

Hundreds of undergraduate and graduate students live and study downtown, a neighborhood of historic buildings, office towers, an arena and convention center and a leafy common.

MCPHS University, a health careers college based in Boston, has 1,500 graduate students enrolled at its campus in downtown Worcester, and more than 500 of those students are living downtown.

Becker College, based about a mile from downtown near Worcester's Elm Park, recently assigned 70 undergraduates to leased housing at 76 Franklin St. downtown.

Even more students are expected downtown after the Worcester Business Development Corp. renovates the former Telegram & Gazette building at 20 Franklin St. to house Quinsigamond Community College programs for about 1,500 students per week.

It's not clear how much students are spending downtown, but college students nationally are projected to spend $117 billion on discretionary items this year, according to a survey reported by media and promotions company re:fuel of New York City. More than a third of spending is expected to go to food.

A critical element for Worcester will be to draw even more people downtown, because current numbers just aren't enough to spur retailers and restaurants, according to Craig L. Blais, president and chief executive of the Worcester Business Development Corp. The WBDC, a development agency, has also pushed a controversial proposal to build an ice rink on the site of a public library parking lot downtown in an effort to draw visitors to the neighborhood.

"Density, density, density," Mr. Blais said. "You can't lead with retail. You've got to lead with density, and retail will follow. Are we making progress? We're making sustained progress toward that."

Downtown Worcester is not bereft of businesses that could attract students. A number of restaurants sit within walking distance of college locations.

"I personally love it," first-year MCPHS pharmacy student Ewelina Furgal, 22, of Springfield, said of Worcester's downtown, "because there are so many business professionals and health professionals, and they're grabbing lunch together. It's a professional environment."

Ashley M. Troy, owner of Trunk & Disorderly consignment boutique at 122 Main St., said she already attracts college students and professionals but would like to draw more people downtown.

"I think more people need to be aware of things that are changing downtown," she said.

Christopher Besaw, general manager of The Palladium, a concert hall that caters to hard rock acts, considered the MCPHS students when developing a business plan for the hall's Paris of the Eighties Café. He would like to see more businesses downtown to attract students.

"The more businesses that are here, the more it attracts students," Mr. Besaw said. "They're not going to go to an area that's dead and desolate."

They also won't venture far from campus without good reason, said Eric Jasdin, owner of Eric's La Patisserie, a café that recently moved to the fourth floor of an office tower at 446 Main St.

"I think that if the students don't have a buzz going on, a vibe, then they're not going to have a big impact," he said. "They're going to stay in their areas."

Worcester's other college neighborhoods offer a lesson in what can flourish near students. Along a busy five-block stretch of Highland Street near Becker College and Worcester Polytechnic Institute, consumers can patronize nine restaurants and cafes, three gas stations, a laundry, two convenience stores, a liquor store, a nail salon, a tattoo parlor and other businesses.

Becker College has about 580 students living on campus or nearby. WPI has about 2,000 students living on campus, and another 3,500 students living off campus.

WPI students frequent many of the Highland Street businesses, according to WPI graduate student Renee A. Lanza, 22, of New London, Conn., as she walked toward Highland Street from the WPI campus last week. Students go to the Sole Proprietor restaurant for drinks and order frozen yogurt at Wooberry Frozen Yogurt, she said.

"And the Boynton (restaurant) is where people are at night," Ms. Lanza said.

Many freshmen walk to a nearby Price Chopper supermarket to shop, said her friend, graduate student Vicky A. Hewey, 22, of Sanford, Maine. Students also head to the Blackstone Valley 14 Cinema de Lux in Millbury on Tuesdays to see movies at discounted prices.

Still, Ms. Hewey said, "I wish there were a lot more things nearby, even other restaurants. Even for upperclassmen, there are no bars to go to. We don't have as much of a college area as others (colleges) do."

Without college students and faculty, Highland Street neighborhood places would be quieter, said Linda Carre Looft, WPI assistant vice president of government and community relations. Downtown needs destinations, Ms. Looft said.

"We need places where people can gather, in bookstores and cafes," she said.

Mr. Monahan of MCPHS wants to see more than students downtown, however.

"I'd love to see the rest of the community come downtown and patronize the restaurants and not just go to The Hanover Theater and Mechanics Hall and go back home and never come downtown again," he said.

Contact Lisa Eckelbecker at leckelbecker@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @LisaEckelbecker.